BOOK REVIEWS

Hans Antlöv and Tak-Wing Ngo, The Cultural Construction of Politics in Asia

In the field of research in contemporary Asia, the question of “culture” constitutes a major methodological prerequisite. Do current events and mutations have to be interpreted through the great cultural tradition of Confucian Asia? Or, rather, should we consider that we have entered a historical period in which Asia should be regarded in a universal context for the analysis of the phenomena? In this fundamental debate, Hans Antlöv and Tak-Wing Ngo's book brings illumination of a rare importance. The introductory chapter in particular offers an extremely precise and systematic critique of the culturalist point of view.

The subject of the volume is “the relationship between culture and politics in Asia, mediated by the contentious issue of democracy” (p. 1). Three phenomena have forced analysts to redefine their analytical theories and instruments. The first is the arrival of a number of Asian countries in the closed shop of developed nations; the second is the recent democratisation not only of these newly developed countries but also of third-world societies (the Philippines). The third phenomenon, to a certain extent, stands in conflict with the second, dealing as it does with the claim made for “Asian values” that are distinct from the Western values of liberal democracy and that justify, in the name of development, regimes that are not democratic, or only scarcely.

Antlöv and Ngo in fact show that the debate between universal values and Asian values refers to very concrete political interests. Behind some, emerge the outlines of a will to dominate, behind others a form of self-justification of authoritarian regimes: “In criticizing the hegemonic imposition of a Western cultural standard onto Asian countries, proponents of Asian democracy have to show that they are not imposing a monolithic national standard onto the multi-ethnic and cultural societies of Asia” (p. 11).

The debate around Asian values itself reveals all the contradictions inherent in the culturalism of the two versions (Asian and Western). First of all, there is the matter of defining the “culture” that is supposed to determine the social and the political. In this area, one sometimes borders on caricature. Thus the authors very justly note that the most famous representative of this current—Lucian Pye—carries off a tour de force by supposing “the existence of a single set of values upheld by all the people in Asia, spreading across dozens of countries, speaking mutually unintelligible languages and believing in different religions” (p. 8). The same comment could be made on the subject of “Western culture”. What culture are we talking about? Today's culture, yesterday's culture, the culture of the north, of the south, of the elite, of the people?

Next, “culture” is an object that can be easily manipulated, both by the holders as well as the contestants of power. The former use democracy or the reference to Confucian obedience to promote their interests. “Asian authoritarianism is often a reaction to ethnic, religious, or regional conflicts rather than a result of cultural values” (p. 12). As for the governed, they refer increasingly to the authenticity of the values as a way to oppose the alleged “Westernisation” of those who govern.

In the end, the link between culture and politics remains highly problematic. If one studies the relationships between economic development and democracy, Western history reveals a disconnection between the two phenomena. Development is a matter of coercion, of extraction and of state regulation rather than of the large-scale participation of the people. Contrary to what is ordinarily believed, “liberal thinkers […] were sceptical about mass rule”. In Taiwan, “big business has been discontented with the rise of labour power during the liberalization process and once even threatened to launch an investment strike in protest against the ‘weakened state'” (p. 14).

The contributions to this collective work deal with the majority of countries in this zone: Sri Lanka, Japan, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and China. For reasons of space, I will content myself with concentrating my attention on the Chinese contributions; it is important, however, to note the quality of all of the texts, which illustrate the initial proposition.

Such is the case with the study by Tak-Wing Ngo (“Social values and consensual politics in colonial Hong Kong”). For Ngo, the political system of the former colony was a kind of liberal authoritarianism or pluralistic authoritarianism. On the one hand, “no election and no universal suffrage until 1982, no political party until the 1990s”, and on the other “no shortage of intererst-group activities, social movements, and lobbying” (p. 131). It is often considered that this paradox was related to “Hong Kong's political culture” (p. 132). In reality, the system was the product of an impasse. On the one hand, “an elected government run by the Hong Kong Chinese would be unacceptable to Beijing”
(p. 133). The vacating of “politics” thus prevented any democratic influence as well as any Taiwanese-style interference and thus any intervention by the mainland in Hong Kong. But from another point of view, political stability could only be ensured through the expression of the interests of the population or, at the very least, of a certain part of it. Contrary to received ideas, Hong Kong society was constantly riven by conflicts. The question was thus “how interest arbitration was undertaken and how decisions were justified in the absence of both democratic mechanisms and coercitive measures?” (p. 137). The solution that was adopted was the use of an “alternative channel of political participation: government by consultation” (p. 137). Great freedom was granted in the organisation of autonomous associations. In particular, the system multiplied the advisory bodies that constituted informal substitutes for political representation and structures for the recognition of collective interests, with the governor rarely opposing the decisions made by these bodies.

Of course, this pluralism was very biased. It expressed above all an alliance between the business communities and the colonial bureaucracy: it was a system of exclusion from/inclusion in the political game. But the interests of the population were not totally neglected as representatives of the wage-earners did sit on the boards and committees of the various bodies. In particular, the government never allowed “a specific group of business elite to undertake rent-seeking activities” (p. 145). The culturalist explanation is thus totally abandoned in favour of an explanation in terms of a socio-historical configuration.

The other two contributions dealing with China constitute, as it were, attempts to rescue the culturalist explanation. The two texts are brilliant and, through that, actually advance the weaknesses of the culturalist analysis. Borge Bakken (“Principled and Unprincipled Democracy”) contrasts the Chinese and the Western conception of democracy term by term. The former is founded on the search for perfection, the judgement of individuals by the yardstick of a moral order, the total visibility of the individuals within the group. The latter is, in contrast, tied to the notions of choice, discussion, meritocracy and imperfection.

The way in which the Chinese conception is presented deserves some comment—in particular concerning the existence of another very widespread social practice: pragmatism—but it is above all the method used to define Western democracy that poses a series of problems. According to Bakken, in the West, democracy seems to have been imposed by and above all for itself without any considerations of instrumental order appearing. Numerous studies have shown that it was only belatedly that the Western elite became aware of the value of democracy as […] a system for controlling the masses((1). The absence of the consideration of the instrumental aspect of democracy leads the author to state, when discussing the village elections in China, “that the reforms are more about practical local village governance and the quest of stability in the rural areas that about democracy as such” (p. 123). What is “democracy as such”?

Then, when Bakken notes that in China “moral elitism has a tendency to develop into structural obstacles to democracy” (p. 121), it is necessary to recall that the Western political system presents by its very nature traits that are both democratic—elections—and aristocratic—professionalisation, self-reproduction of the political elite, etc.((2). Finally, when reading Bakken's text, one gains something of the impression that elections and the meritocracy are the only two systems for selecting individuals in democratic systems. But, not only are notions of authority and of arbitrariness far from absent, recent events in France show that nepotism and corruption are still very widespread in our developed democracies. Moreover, when the author describes the moral pressure that is exerted on the individual in China and the importance accorded to moral interrogation of oneself and to the control of one's own behaviour, we do not seem to be too far from references to civism and to the total visibility of the individual propagated by a not negligible part of American society. In other words, the question is raised of knowing what democratic tradition is being referred to when Western democratic values are defined.

The contribution from Geir Helgesen and Li Xing (“Good governance democracy or minzhu?”) presents the same characteristics as Bakken's. The proposition is clear from the beginning: “The relationship between culture and politics […] reciprocal and dialectical; each phenomenon affects the other in a continuous process”. However, “it is important to understand culture in the role of context, and politics as the more fluctuating dimension of the two. This imply that basic social and moral values and norms are seen as given condition, not unchangeable, but difficult to direct at will” (p. 179). Within this framework, and beyond the petitio principii, the question is raised of the definition of this culture. The temptation is then to liken culture to thought, which is what Helgesen and Li do. Confucianism becomes the expression of Chinese culture, and Western thought the expression of Western culture, without the question really being asked of the link between the culture—or more exactly, following Antlöv and Ngo, the cultures—of a country and its philosophical output. In other words, in what way is philosophy, which is after all the product of a very small elite, emblematic of the cultural practices of the great mass of the population? Are all Chinese attentive readers of Confucius, has every Westerner studied Montesquieu or Kant?

Moreover, in the contribution by Helgesen and Li, Chinese thought and Western thought, their variety and their abundance notwithstanding, are “reified” in monolithic categories and systematically compared. Thus, according to the authors, “humanism in the West denoted a break with religious mysticism”. However, Protestant mysticism is not unrelated to the development of capitalism and, conversely, it is conceivable that there is nothing less mystical than a “contemporary Chinese person” in religious matters. Similarly, the authors believe that democracy is linked to a Western historical context beginning in the Hellenic era. Certainly, but let us not forget that there is an enormous gulf between the Greek conception of elections—where the drawing of lots played a major role—and our present-day conceptions((3). A further example of simplification consists in contrasting Chinese “familialism” with Western individualism. This is to write off the importance that the family was able to take and continues to take in the processes of accumulation and the struggle for power within Western societies.

As a whole, Antlöv and Ngo's book is indisputably one of the best on the question of the relationships between politics and culture. Not only because the brilliant introduction makes a decisive contribution to clarifying the debate, but also by virtue of the quality of the articles, including those which retread the culturalist path. Henceforth, no one will be able to “practise culturalism” without first replying to the critiques presented by this book.

Translated from the French original by Nick Oates